ULCER
What does "ULCER" mean?
An open sore on the skin or an inner surface of the body that heals slowly.
Meanings
- A break in the skin or mucous membrane that fails to heal, often inflamed and painful. A stomach ulcer can flare up after a stretch of stress and skipped meals.
- A corrupting or festering influence on something (figurative). Corruption was an ulcer eating quietly at the institution. figurative
Did you know?
- Doctors blamed stomach ulcers on stress for decades until Barry Marshall drank a flask of Helicobacter pylori to prove bacteria caused them - work that won him and Robin Warren the 2005 Nobel Prize in Medicine.
Word origin
From Latin 'ulcus' (a sore), via its stem 'ulcer-', from a Proto-Indo-European root meaning 'wound'; related to Greek 'helkos', also meaning sore.
Remember it
ULCER hides 'cer' as in 'sour' - the sour acid that worsens a stomach ULCER.
A little poem
What will not close keeps asking why;
the small raw place beneath the skin
remembers what the mind let by.
tercet
What it teaches
Some wounds heal; the ones that linger are usually trying to tell you what you keep ignoring.
Quick facts
What does ULCER mean?
An open sore on the skin or an inner surface of the body that heals slowly.
Is ULCER a valid word?
Yes — ULCER is one of the answer words in Wordul, the daily word game.
How many letters is ULCER?
ULCER has 5 letters and 2 syllables.
Where does ULCER come from?
From Latin 'ulcus' (a sore), via its stem 'ulcer-', from a Proto-Indo-European root meaning 'wound'; related to Greek 'helkos', also meaning sore.
What can ULCER teach us?
Some wounds heal; the ones that linger are usually trying to tell you what you keep ignoring.
How players do
Be the first to solve it.